With 13.6 million viewers tuning in live and an additional six million streams and replays, the show itself claimed the throne from The Sopranos, which welcomed 13.43 million viewers during its fourth season premiere back in 2002.

Although the long-reigning show may have broken a number of records, many Game of Thrones fans were left disappointed after the highly anticipated finale.

A Change.org petition created earlier this month demanding HBO remake the show’s eighth season spiked dramatically following the episode and, as of this writing, has received more than 1.38 million signatures.

The response to this backlash? Well, some of the show’s leading stars, including Kit Harington (Jon Snow) and Isaac Hempstead Wright (Brandon Stark) — who became king of the now-Six Kingdoms of Westeros — revealed how they really felt about the finale.

Harington, 32, admitted ahead of the finale that he thought it might divide fans.

(L-R) Maisie Williams, Kit Harington, Sophie Turner and Isaac Hempstead Wright at the final Game of Thrones season premiere at the Waterfront Hall on April 12, 2019 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

“If you track Daenerys’ story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive,” the actor told Entertainment Weekly in defence of his character’s decision.

“This has been building so we have to say to the audience: ‘You’re in denial about this woman as well. You knew something was wrong. You’re culpable — you cheered her on.'”

He added his concerns about the show being perceived as sexist when Daenerys was killed off as well as Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), who was crushed by falling debris and rocks alongside her brother Jaime in the aftermath of the carnage that took King’s Landing.

“One of my worries with this is we have Cersei and Dany, two leading women, who fall,” he said. “The justification is just because they’re women, why should they be the goodies?

“They’re the most interesting characters in the show, and that’s what Thrones has always done. You can’t just say the strong women are going to end up the good people.”

He added: “Dany is not a good person. It’s going to open up discussion, but there’s nothing done in this show that isn’t truthful to the characters. And when have you ever seen a woman play a dictator?”

This image released by HBO shows from left to right Maisie Williams, Isaac Hempstead Wright and Sophie Turner in a scene from the final episode of Game of Thrones, which aired Sunday, May 19, 2019. (HBO via AP)

(HBO via AP)

“I genuinely thought it was a joke script,” Hempstead Wright told EW. “(I thought that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss) sent everyone a script where their character ends up on the Iron Throne.”

“Good one, guys,” he joked. “Oh, s**t — it’s actually real?”

The 20-year-old actor added that he knew that many fans would not be happy that “Bran the Broken” ended up being the ruler of Westeros.

“Not everyone will be happy,” he said. “It’s so difficult to finish a series as popular as this without p**sing some people off.”

Although Brandon came out on top, Hempstead Wright revealed that he wished his character would have had a “good death scene” instead.

“I’m happy, though I kind of did want to die and get in one good death scene with an exploding head or something,” he said.

When asked her own opinion regarding the backlash, Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) hit back against the “disrespectful” remarks made by many disgruntled fans.

“Honestly, I’m not surprised,” she told the New York Times on Monday. “People always have an idea in their heads of how they want a show to finish and so when it doesn’t go to their liking, they start to speak up about it and rebel.”

A post shared by Sophie Turner (@sophiet) on May 19, 2019 at 1:12pm PDT

“The thing about Game of Thrones that’s always been amazing is the fact that there’s always been crazy twists and turns… right from Season 1 with Ned’s beheading,” she said. “So Daenerys becoming something of the Mad Queen — it shouldn’t be such a negative thing for fans.”

She continued: “It’s a shock, for sure, but I think it’s just because it hasn’t gone their way. All of these petitions and things like that — I think it’s disrespectful to the crew and the writers and the filmmakers who have worked tirelessly over 10 years and for 11 months shooting the last season.

“So many people worked so, so hard on it, and for people to just rubbish it because it’s not what they want to see is just disrespectful.”